Researchers Break Internet Speed Records

MosiMosi wrote to let us know about a new development on the Internet2 front. Researchers in Tokyo have advanced the speed of the network, breaking records twice in two days back in December of last year. "On Dec. 30 [researchers] sent data at 7.67 gigabits per second, using standard communications protocols. The next day, using modified protocols, the team broke the record again by sending data over the same 20,000-mile path at 9.08 Gbps. That likely represents the current network's final record because rules require a 10 percent improvement for recognition, a percentage that would bring the next record right at the Internet2's current theoretical limit of 10 Gbps."

Comments

Re:New Speed Record?

[tomstdenis]

As I understand it, this is over one link. OC-192 is actually a series of OC-48 links bonded together.

Heck you can get yourself a nice 10gbit/sec line with 10 1gbit lines, ooh la lah

Tom

Re:But...

[SETIGuy]

Hmmm, let's see: Let's have maximum capacity DVD's at 9GB and for the sake of this exercise let's say the station wagon's capacity is 1000 DVDs so we have 9000GB moving around. Let's say the 20,000 mile distance will be covered at top speed (breaking speed limits in all states) at 100miles/h that results in 200 hours of deliverance time so:

station wagon data speed = 9000 GB / 200 hours = 45 GB / hour = 0.0125 GB / sec = 0.1 Gbit / sec

You are mixing up latency with bandwidth. The latency (round trip time) of the connection here is 400 hours. The bandwidth (i.e. data rate) is the amount of data divided by the time it takes for the data to travel its own length.

At 100 mph, a station wagon will travel its length in 0.14 seconds. So the bandwidth of a stationwagon packed with 9000 GB of data is about 550 Tbps.

Given a train of station wagons running at 100mph, you could sustain that. Of course with 1440000000 ms ping times, I wouldn't try playing Battlefield 2 over that connection.

Seriously, the distinction is important. If you included transit time when calculating bandwidth, the theoretical maximum bandwidth for a 12,000 bit packet on a 20,000 mile path would be 112 kbps.

Re:Never underestimate...

[Nullav]

I think I'd get bored waiting around...

You look at a progress bar for entertainment?
On a more serious note, you'd still get in one chunk, so the initial byte wouldn't matter.

What we need to look at is Gigabits per dollar.
Assuming that you were somehow blessed with an ISP that would let you download over a TB/month, and had a 5Mb/s connection (and assuming constant speed), it would take roughly 19.4 days to download.
Assuming a 30-day month and that your ISP charged $40/month, it would come to $25.86 for that one transfer, which would be $0.000003/Mb.
Shipping a 700g package to (anywhere in) Canada via USPS airmail (The Internet is international, after all.) would be $14.50. That comes to $0.000001/MB.

Just my 0.0002 cents.